Sir.—We would like to comment on the interesting report entitled "Unusual Multiresistant Staphylococcus aureus in a Newborn Nursery" by Trallero et al (Journal 1981;135: 689-692). Nosocomial transmission of methicillin-resistant S aureus (MRSA) on pediatric wards was first reported in 1963.1 Three outbreaks of infection among neonates due to multiresistant S aureus were reported before 1981,2-4 and several other epidemics have been described in detail or alluded to in reports published more recently.5,6

Multiresistant strains of S aureus have been recovered from patients at our institution since January 1978. Agar disk-diffusion susceptibility tests performed at 30 °C on isolates recovered after June 1979 revealed that these organisms were resistant to methicillin and oxacillin (100% of strains tested), erythromycin (100%), clindamycin (97%), gentamicin (96% ), cephalothin (84% ), tetracycline (64%), sulfamethoxazole and trimethoprim (51%), and cefamandole (33% ). Thirty-three representative isolates have also been tested by agar dilution methods performed at